


then i see you

by MareisuinShihaku



Series: divide me down to the smallest i can be [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, 月刊少女野崎くん | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Quidditch, WakaSeo Week, practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MareisuinShihaku/pseuds/MareisuinShihaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wakamatsu swings a leg over his own broom and rises steadily into the air, just level with the Slytherin. "What are you planning? You don't have Madam Hooch's permission to--"</p>
<p>A Bludger collides against his face before Wakamatsu has a chance to so much as attempt to duck out of the way. Thankfully, it seems to have had a weak Cushioning Charm cast on it, because his nose isn't bleeding too badly. Somewhere in the distance, he can vaguely hear the cackling of Seo Yuzuki swooping around the pitch on her entirely too-fast broom, swinging her Beater's bat wherever she can reach.</p>
<p>"Seo-senpai!"</p>
<p>"What?" She laughs. "This is fun, isn't it, Waka? C'mon, use this!" Then she uses her bat to send a white object speeding towards him, which he thankfully manages to catch with his Chaser reflexes before it follows the Bludger's example. A closer look reveals it to be a golf ball with a smiley face painted on it. "Got it from my Squib cousins! Use it as your Quaffle, and let's see how we fare against each other, eh?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	then i see you

**Author's Note:**

> wakaseo week, day 4: practice  
> waka is a 2nd year, sakura/seo/nozaki are 3rd years; i wanted to make them cute little kids for day 6 ;-; please allow me to indulge myself
> 
> "How am I supposed to pretend  
> I never want to see you again?"  
> \--Campus, Vampire Weekend

"Looks like the next match is Hufflepuff versus Slytherin," Sakura comments casually, looking over the Quidditch schedule and smiling in excitement. "You're going up against Yuzuki for the first time in an official match, Wakamatsu-kun!"

"Sounds great," Wakamatsu says, repressing the urge to heave the contents of his stomach into the nearest toilet. The idea of facing Seo Yuzuki, the unbeatable Beater (at least according to rumors; one look at her on the pitch makes these rumors  _very_  credible, however), makes him feel like he should just drop out of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team while he can. But the sport has always been a fun sort of thing for him, and one person shouldn't ruin  _everything_  for him -- right? He swallows nervously and nods. "Y-Yeah. There's practice today, so maybe -- maybe I could see if there's anything I can do against her."

Someone slides into the space next to him on the table. Wakamatsu picks at his eggs, contemplating ways on making his Comet Two-Sixty turn faster so he can successfully evade every Bludger Seo decides to throw at him, when the person beside him speaks up. "Hey, Waka!"

The poor second-year jumps about three feet in the air. "S-S-Seo-senpai!"

"The match is next week, eh?" The blonde grins, slinging an arm around his shoulder a little too casually for Wakamatsu to  _not_  be suspicious. "We've got practice today, so get ready for a good ol' bashing!"

" _What?_ " Wakamatsu squeaks. "P-Practice today?"

"Didn't ya hear me? Slytherin team booked the arena for... uh, three in the afternoon, I think."

"But that's--!" He manages to make up a short list of feeble excuses before realizing that this isn't going to work out. Hufflepuffs haven't beaten Slytherins in these sorts of things in years. "I... um... but we..."

Seo brings out a crumpled note from her pocket, a familiar signature scribbled near the bottom. "Snape signed it already, so we have total permission to have the arena to ourselves! How about that?"

Wakamatsu hastily excuses himself from the table and rushes as fast as he can to the Hufflepuff Captain, who's sitting at the edge of the table with his circle of friends. "T-Tanaka-senpai! The... The Slytherins..."

After he relays what Seo had told him, Tanaka looks ready to blow a fuse, but manages to keep himself under control. "Yamamura can't join us any later after four, since he's got that detention with Filch, and we  _definitely_  won't be able to secure a signature from Professor Sprout without  _someone_  from the Slytherin team butting in about how they got a signed form first..." He groans and massages his temple. "But we can't afford to lose the match next week, and one practice session can change everything... along with that, Ichigo can't attend practice on Tuesday because of his grandma's funeral... fine. We'll have to just share the pitch."

"We  _what?_ " Wakamatsu yelps.

"Share the pitch," Tanaka says, as if that's supposed to answer the whole question, which it  _doesn't_. "We'll get the Slytherins to take turns with us in using the pitch. They get twenty minutes for themselves, then we switch in and practice for twenty. So on and so forth."

"That is not going to work," Wakamatsu replies, because it won't.

Tanaka knows that much, but he doesn't seem to want to admit it. With a sigh, he turns back to his food and stares at his half-finished plate in disinterest. "We don't have a choice, do we? Worst case scenario, we'll have to fight the Slytherins in a 'friendly practice match' or some other thing like that, but we are  _not_  giving up a practice session unless we want to be completely annihilated next week. Tell your friend about it, will you?"

"She's not my friend," Wakamatsu protests weakly, but turns around and heads back to his spot in the table anyway. Sakura is chatting amicably with Seo, with no hostility visible between them at all. A large number of the Hufflepuffs who had been sitting near Sakura had hastily moved away at the sight of the blonde, though. Wakamatsu takes a seat beside Sakura, feeling resigned. "Seo-senpai?"

"We ain't sharing the pitch," Seo says bluntly, reaching over and plucking some bacon off of Wakamatsu's plate. The Hufflepuff doesn't even care by this point, nor does he bother questioning how Seo had known. The Slytherin has her ways, and Wakamatsu is fairly sure he would be much better off not knowing about them.

"Why not?" he asks dryly. "You've nothing to lose, right?"

"Mm..." she chomps down on the bacon and takes her time chewing it before replying. "How about you and I practice, just the two of us, right now? I've got time, and it's Saturday morning. No way am I going to be spending my day writing that essay Binns gave us."

"Professor Binns gave us an essay?" Sakura yelps. "Ohh,  _no_..."

Wakamatsu spares her an apologetic pat on the back before turning back to Seo. "If you really think I'm going to let you slam a Bludger in my face every few seconds," he starts, doing his utmost best to glare at her threateningly, "then you've got another thing coming..."

"That's cute," Seo says, looking like she's refraining from rolling her eyes to spare what little is left of his dignity. (That's a rather uncharacteristically nice thing she's doing, Wakamatsu notices.) "Well, you ready? C'mon, no one's there yet. Get your sorry broom and meet me out on the pitch, yeah?"

Wakamatsu doesn't get a chance to reply before Seo slides off the chair and heads out of the Great Hall. While Sakura frets over the unknown essay, Wakamatsu wonders if it's too late to leave Hogwarts and live with his Muggle parents for the rest of his life.

* * *

"Your broom is pathetic," Seo says, sitting on her Firebolt and picking at her nails. "Have I told you that before?"

"Thank you," Wakamatsu grumbles, swinging a leg over his own broom and rising steadily into the air, just level with the Slytherin. "What are you planning? You don't have Madam Hooch's permission to--"

A Bludger collides against his face before Wakamatsu has a chance to so much as  _attempt_  to duck out of the way. Thankfully, it seems to have had a weak Cushioning Charm cast on it, because his nose isn't bleeding  _too_  badly. Somewhere in the distance, he can vaguely hear the cackling of Seo Yuzuki swooping around the pitch on her entirely too-fast broom, swinging her Beater's bat wherever she can reach.

" _Seo-senpai!_ "

"What?" She laughs. "This is fun, isn't it, Waka? C'mon, use this!" Then she uses her bat to send a white object speeding towards him, which he thankfully manages to catch with his Chaser reflexes before it follows the Bludger's example. A closer look reveals it to be a golf ball with a smiley face painted on it. "Got it from my Squib cousins! Use it as your Quaffle, and let's see how we fare against each other, eh?"

Left without too much of a choice, Wakamatsu dives towards one of the hoops, and just narrowly avoids a Bludger speeding towards him. The golf ball sails through the middle hoop, and he deftly catches it before it can fall to the ground. "Ten to zero," he mumbles, eyeing the whooping Seo as she flings the Bludger towards him again. This time, he doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and it catches the tail of his broom, knocking several of the twigs off. Precarious balance aside, this is actually starting off well, at least when compared to some of the other stories his upperclassmen share. Seo had actually knocked all three Chasers off of their brooms within five minutes of a Slytherin versus Ravenclaw match at one point, at least according to Nozaki-senpai.

Wakamatsu scores twice (thirty points!) before the Bludger crashes against his arm and sends him speeding to the ground. Someone screams. It's probably him, though he swears his voice can't possibly be that high. He scrabbles for his broom, but it completely disappears somewhere else he can't reach and, with no other choice left, he tenses himself for the impact against the ground. Hopefully, he won't break more than three bones.

A pair of arms catch him right out of mid-air. "Gotcha," Seo sings -- her voice sounds  _awfully_  familiar, but Wakamatsu dismisses the thought. Before he can react, Seo places him behind her on the Firebolt and grabs hold of it once more, directing them to the ground in a much less painful manner. "I would have just left you to fall to your death if you were any other guy, but I can't exactly be blamed for murder against my fellow Quidditch players, eh? You alright, there?"

"I'm... okay," Wakamatsu says, ignoring the dull pain in his arm. Moving it doesn't sound like a very good idea, right now. "Um, thanks for catching me, then, Seo-senpai... but..."

"Oh, your broom?" She scoffs. "It's  _probably_  still usable, but don't bother. You can use my old Nimbus, how about that? Maybe then you'll be a bit more of a challenge."

"I got thirty points before you sent me careening off my broom," Wakamatsu says.

"I was holding back!" The moment Wakamatsu steps off the Firebolt, Seo zooms back up into the air, surveying the area before diving towards a particular area. When she comes back to where Wakamatsu is standing, she dumps a bent Comet Two-Sixty by his feet. "Now you've  _really_  got no choice. It's my Nimbus or the school's Cleansweeps, and those  _suck_."

Wakamatsu scoops up what's left of his old, loyal broom and stares at it uncomprehendingly. "T... This was a gift from Nozaki-senpai!"

"Well, it wasn't a very durable gift, was it," Seo remarks boredly. "Nozaki, huh... ain't he the Ravenclaw guy who's always hanging out with Chiyo? He quit Quidditch in his second year, right? I reckon that was his old broom, he used a Comet Two-Sixty too when he was on the team."

Wakamatsu sighs and sits down, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "This was a hopeless practice from the start."

"You were going  _really_  slow," Seo offers. "How about it? My Nimbus 2000 is a little sluggish, but it's at least two hundred ten percent better than that sad excuse for a broom."

"Please don't insult Nozaki-senpai's broom like that," Wakamatsu says, though it's a halfhearted plea. A Nimbus 2000... he would have the chance to ride a Nimbus 2000... and  _Seo-senpai's_  broom of all brooms... It was bound to be broken in some places, perhaps because she would have crashed into others during her second year, where she first started playing Quidditch, but still, a  _Nimbus 2000_... "All my brooms seem to be hand-me-downs," he concludes.

Seo brightens, which is almost as frightening as her cackles. "So you'll take it?" And before he can so much as say 'sure', she barrels on, "Hurry up, then! We're goin' to the Slytherin common room  _right now!_ "

"Huh?" he squeaks.

"Slytherin. Common room.  _Now!_ "

"But I'm not-- I'm a Hufflepuff-- your housemates are going to  _tear me apart_ \--"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic! Come on, come on!"

* * *

"Is that a  _Nimbus 2000?_ " Tanaka gapes, self-consciously shuffling his Cleansweep Seven behind his back.

Wakamatsu shrugs and tries not to look too uncomfortable. "Uh... yes, my... friend... gave it to me..."

"Well, we'll  _definitely_  be winning this match!" Yamamura declares, slapping the Chaser on the back. "Wakamatsu on one of those -- I say, you might even be able to survive that Seo girl!"

"Ha, ha," Wakamatsu laughs, or at least tries to, paling considerably at how Seo would definitely not be 'holding back' with his new broom during the match. "Yeah. Definitely."

**Author's Note:**

> waka and sakura know each other because they're housemates and friends of nozaki, obviously  
> waka and seo know each other after a quidditch match (hufflepuff vs slytherin), where waka accuses seo of cheating in front of the slytherin common room, and when the rest of the slytherins are gathering around him and cracking their knuckles (and waka is thoroughly regretting not thinking this through), seo says he's got the most guts she's seen in a first-year!! hahaha!!!! they're gonna get along great!!!!!!! (waka is terrified and relays the conversation to sakura, who says that yuzuki is a great friend, what are you talking about wakamatsu-kun)


End file.
